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But that this same Mars, or Aphrodite, in certain aspects
should cause adulteries- as if they could thus, through the
agency of human incontinence, satisfy their own mutual desires-
is not such a notion the height of unreason? And who could accept
the fancy that their happiness comes from their seeing each other
in this or that relative position and not from their own settled
nature?
Again: countless myriads of living beings are born and continue
to be: to minister continuously to every separate one of these;
to make them famous, rich, poor, lascivious; to shape the active
tendencies of every single one- what kind of life is this for the
stars, how could they possibly handle a task so huge?
They are to watch, we must suppose, the rising of each several
constellation and upon that signal to act; such a one, they see,
has risen by so many degrees, representing so many of the periods
of its upward path; they reckon on their fingers at what moment
they must take the action which, executed prematurely, would be
out of order: and in the sum, there is no One Being controlling
the entire scheme; all is made over to the stars singly, as if
there were no Sovereign Unity, standing as source of all the
forms of Being in subordinate association with it, and delegating
to the separate members, in their appropriate Kinds, the task of
accomplishing its purposes and bringing its latent potentiality
into act.
This is a separatist theory, tenable only by minds ignorant of
the nature of a Universe which has a ruling principle and a first
cause operative downwards through every member.
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